


Supplication

by hitlikehammers



Category: Ant-Man (2015), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: (That Is Absolutely Not Even Close To Ever Being Accurate Ever), Ant-Man Post-Credits Scene, Bucky Barnes Returns, Captain America: Civil War Speculation, Extended Scene, Fix-It, M/M, Reunions, Spoilers, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-15
Updated: 2015-07-15
Packaged: 2018-04-09 13:08:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4349987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hitlikehammers/pseuds/hitlikehammers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The fact is: Steve Rogers was never a good liar. Always played it over-the-top, or failed to control where his eyes moved; how many times he blinked. His tells were endless.</p><p>Provided that one knew where to look.</p><p> </p><p>  <span class="small">Spoilers for <i>Ant-Man</i>, Post-Credits Scene (2015).</span></p>
            </blockquote>





	Supplication

**Author's Note:**

> So, there's this post-credits scene on _Ant-Man_ y'all may have heard about? The one that, in absence of context, I am NOT OKAY WITH? 
> 
> I decided that, if there was nothing right about the reactions and facial expressions and non-context about that scene, I would in turn make that _scene_ "not-right". So, here's me. Doing that.
> 
> Also: unbeta'd. I kinda whipped this out in less than an hour and was impatient. Whatevs.

Steve’s face shifts before the door even latches closed—the tightness in his expression falling, those eyes going soft as his feet carry him forward: automatic. Absolute.

Just this side of desperate.

Because the fact is: Steve Rogers was never a good liar. Always played it over-the-top, or failed to control where his eyes moved; how many times he blinked. His tells were endless.

Provided that one knew where to look.

“Breathe, Stevie,” Bucky says, and god _damn_ : as much as it hurts that Steve’s eyes are bleeding out some kind of heartbreak Bucky’s never seen before, it’s a fucking gift—a god-given blessing when Bucky don’t believe in god anymore; but it’s a _gift_ to say that name. To see that face. To do more than just dream it, or make it up inside his head. “It ain’t real.”

And Bucky slips his left arm out from the clamp: smooth as anything. For all that it’d been agony around him for days, weeks maybe—he doesn’t think it stretched to months—but for all that it was killing him slowly, it’s nothing to him now. Innocuous. A sick joke.

“It was, though,” and Steve’s on his knees at Bucky’s side, Steve’s got hands around the metal plating, fingers splayed inside the grooves and he touches gentle, damn well caresses, and Bucky can feel it, now: can feel touch for what it is, without the chemicals, the injections, the things he’d fought against long and hard once he’d surfaced, once he’d forced himself to be, and to move, and to _try_.

“It _was_ real,” Steve hisses again, and Bucky doesn’t know if he’ll ever forget the look in Steve’s eyes, or the sound of the sob-choked moan that had escaped him when he’d seen him, when he’d rushed without thinking or pausing or caution or sense—damned _fool_ —to free Bucky, to press lips to his head and beg out loud for him to be alright, just be _alright_ —

Bucky doesn’t know that he’ll ever forget it; and it kills him, a little.

But to never _forget_ , not ever again?

He’ll take it.

“Breathe,” he urges again, and slides the hand that Steve’s stroking to cups Steve’s cheek, reaches the other to cradle the back of his head and he leads him in, presses Steve into his chest and lets Steve listen to the life there: let’s him rise and fall when what Bucky’s remembering it _really_ means to be alive—what Bucky’s breathing in from past and present, here and now.

“Think that was a good enough show for the peanut gallery?” Steve murmurs against Bucky’s collarbone. Bucky snorts.

“Whoever they are,” he nods, and drops a kiss to the top of Steve’s head, and revels in the way that Steve burrows into him, just a little closer at the gesture. He’s missed this. More than freedom, more than clarity, more than memory, more than air: he’s missed Steve, right here. Steve held close. The feel of him, pressed tight. Right against the heart.

S’what Bucky fought for, when he'd had the choice. S’the only thing worth killing for in the whole wide world.

But they had to make it convincing. Bucky’d found the evidence months ago: of the tracers, the tracking and surveillance software in the EXO-8 technology Stark had cooked up. They still don’t know to what extent the monitoring runs, what it transmits; they still don’t know if it’s Stark who’s got ears on them, or even eyes.

“Could have spared me the whispered pleas, y’know.”

And Bucky can read in Steve’s eyes the misery as he whimpers, as he pulls back to meet Bucky’s gaze. He can read the way it’d torn Steve apart from the inside to stand still and play the role, maintain the guise they needed as Bucky barely formed those words, begged for help, not even strong enough to move the limp strands of hair that’d dangled in front of his lips.

Bucky leans in, rests his forehead against Steve’s.

“S’what you don’t understand about setting the scene, punk,” Bucky murmurs. “Gotta buy it yourself and give it a whirl, before you’re ever gonna sell it.” And Bucky’s flippant, sly about it—and that’s a gift too, to be that, to let words slip off his tongue just do; but the words don’t match the feeling, the apology and the promise that roots them at their core. 

He straightens, and demonstrates the tactic: Steve’s hand is still at Bucky’s metal arm, and so he feels it, goes wider-eyed still when Bucky plays with the inner juncture at his shoulder, presses idly and resets the limb, the plates shuddering as they recalibrate.

“You can...” Steve stares at him, wide-eyed: he hadn’t realized that Bucky’d disabled the full functionality of the limb while he’d mimicked his own captivity.

“‘Course I can,” Bucky smirks a little; amused and bitter for it, all at once. “Learned a lot before I came here,” he shrugs, and he can feel his expression harden with resolve, brighten with the promise of revenge. “Then I learned some more.”

Steve’s hands are reaching for both of Bucky’s own, twining fingers together and squeezing with intent.

“But at what _cost_?”

And Steve will probably use that as an excuse: the fact that Bucky was being held prisoner at all didn’t compute with his skill—didn’t align with the recognition that’d hit in the helicarrier. Steve knew something was up, knew it wasn’t as it seemed when he breached the base and made his way to Bucky’s cell. He’d known, and that’s why he didn’t hesitate.

Which is bullshit, obviously, in that regard. But the fact of it remains: Bucky’d planned to be caught. Bucky’d placed himself exactly where he needed to be. He had debts to settle. Wrongs to undo, as best he could.

Loose ends to tie.

The cost, whatever it was, was irrelevant. Never came to mind..

“Don’t matter,” and that’s the deeper truth, really. “There’s only one price in this world that I ain’t willing to pay.”

He cradles Steve’s jaw and pulls him in, lips dry and body worn, but Steve drinks him like they’re dying, puts his whole life into the kiss for safe keeping, even though they’re neither of them safe.

They only pull away when Steve’s phone buzzes: quiet, but to them, it’s a cacophony.

Steve glances at the screen before look up through those impossible lashes. “Buck.” 

“Is he airborne?”

“Yeah,” Steve swallows, regret in his eyes as he whispers, slides his phone away: “Headed east.”

And Bucky remembers most things, now: has had time to parse it out and bring it back, to let the serum do its job uninhibited in rebuilding what was lost in his mind. Bucky remembers what that look on Steve’s face means.

“He’ll understand,” Steve voices, more to himself than to Bucky: gives words to the thing Bucky’s already identified—the burn of betrayal that he feels he’s executed against an ally: a friend.

“Damn right he will,” Bucky tells him, and believes it too. “Wilson’s not an idiot.” 

And it wasn’t _Wilson_ that they couldn’t trust.

To which point:

“We gotta move,”Bucky says, and makes to stand; Steve hands on him don’t budge, though. Don’t allow it.

“Just,” and Steve’s voice cracks as he settles back against Bucky’s chest, downright clinging. “Let me. For a minute, please, just—”

The way he gasps around feeling, and the way Bucky can feel him shaking against his body: it’s soul-searing. It’s hateful and beautiful all at once.

“Please,” Steve begs, and Bucky can feel the heat of sorrow, of relief, of the whole world itself starting to soak his shirt from Steve’s screwed-shut eyes.

And Bucky could never deny Steve a goddamned thing, really.

Let alone _this_.

So Bucky tangles arms around him, and holds him there as Steve shakes, as Bucky’s blood pounds against Steve’s cheek and they take the moments to let it settle, to let it sink in that this is real. That they are real. 

That they’re _here_.

Steve’s breath shudders, but eventually he stills, and pulls back: eyes red, but dry. 

“Okay,” he exhales slow, draws it out to inch toward steady. “What do we know?”

Bucky’s lips curl up: sinister.

“Where that dickface motherfucker is,” he sneers. “And what bullshit stunt he’s planning to pull.”

Like he’d said: he planned to be caught. He’d placed himself exactly where he needed to be. 

He’d learned a whole fucking lot.

“Right,” Steve nods, breathes in and claps Bucky’s shoulder meaningfully. “You ready?”

And honestly—aside from kissing Stevie for the first time, and then holding him close like he’d never done before: skin-to-skin, making love—except for that?

Bucky doesn’t think he’s ever been more ready for another goddamned thing. 

“D’ya know he calls himself Crossbones, now?” Bucky scoffs as they make their way out of the compound; he doesn’t even bother to be careful of the bodies in the halls. “I mean, not as bad as Captain America, I’ll grant him,” he turns to Steve with a wink; “but s’not like you had a say in that shit.”

Steve tries not to grin, tries to be offended, tries to pout at least, if not broadcast real distaste: he can’t though. It’s too much to ask when they’re within arm’s reach, when their shoulders brush as they walk, when they’re still the only ones in the room, in the world, after everything: it’s too good.

They can’t help but smile.

And Bucky can’t help but lean over and capture Steve’s lips one more time before they do this, before they start knocking dominos and letting everything fall.

Steve gives as good as he gets, and oh.

It really _is_ too damn good.

Bucky pulls back and lets himself speak against that mouth, lets himself taste Steve and heat and home and love on those lips: lets himself _remember_ before he makes the call.

“Move out.”

And neither of them follows: they move side by side. Inseparable.

And that, too, is just too damn _good_.

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr](http://hitlikehammers.tumblr.com/post/124184893037/fic-supplication-1-1).


End file.
